Center for World Conflict and Peace

Monday, December 22, 2014

My choice for 2014 world politics Person of the Year is Vladimir Putin. Of
course, my selection isn’t because he was a good guy. On the other hand, my
choice of Putin isn’t solely because he was a bad guy, though, yes, that’s part of
the story. Instead, I chose Putin because, in my view, he was the most
newsworthy actor in world politics in 2014, both in terms of the
importance of his actions and policies as well as the length of time they have dominated the news. Russia and IR watchers more generally
have focused heaps of attention on him throughout the entire year. Just consider these series of events, all of which were orchestrated by
Putin and his cabal, which stretch from February to December 2014: The Winter
Olympics, Russia’s capture of Crimea, the unrest in Eastern Ukraine, the
finalization of Putin’s planned Eurasian Economic Union, the collapse of the
Russian Ruble.

Certainly, Putin’s most profound move was to create
instability in Ukraine. Under his watch, Russia has effectively dismembered
Ukraine. Russia has seized Crimea and played a huge part in fomenting a
resistance in Eastern Ukraine, leaving Ukraine a shell of what it once was. Putin’s
excellent adventures in Ukraine have created another Russian-made frozen conflict that
has no end in sight. They patently violate international law and norms on
sovereignty and self-determination. They potentially send a signal to other
would-be aggressors, such as China, that conquest is permissible in world
politics. They have also sent shivers throughout neighboring countries, such as Kazakhstan,
which worry that they could be next on Putin’s hit list.

Russian actions in Ukraine were motivated by several
factors, including Putin’s narcissism and ego and his quest to restore Russia
as a major world power. Arguably, the most consequential factor has been Putin’s
desire to show the Western powers, particularly the U.S., who the real boss is.

In Putin’s view, Russia has languished for the past two plus
decades as a humiliated, defanged country, and the main culprit is America. Russia lost the cold war and lost it
on American terms. After all, Germany unified and became a member of the
Western camp, and the EU and NATO, because of U.S. hegemonic ambitions, has expanded into Central and Eastern Europe,
the Soviets old stomping grounds. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Russia has
had to suffer the indignity of seeing the U.S., as the sole dominant power,
throw its weight around the world, starting wars around the world, even going
so far as to use military bases of former Soviet states. More recently, the Western-led
invasion of Libya exacerbated these feelings of humiliation: Russia never
agreed to the ouster to Gaddafi, only to the assistance and protection of Libyans thought
to be in harm’s way.

Prior to Putin’s shenanigans in the spring of 2014, decision-making
calculus was shaped by his perception of Western resolve and credibility.
Although those two terms are widely overused in policy and academic analysis,
they are appropriate here. Putin saw the U.S. and its NATO partners as weak,
reluctant to confront him head-on. Western criticisms of Russian behavior in
Ukraine would remain in word only; the West would do little follow-up to punish
Russia. As a result, because of few fears of external punishment, Putin believed there was little
downside to challenging EU countries and the U.S. He also received a domestic benefit
from asserting himself in Ukraine: challenging the Washington plays well internally
in Russia, as it capitalizes on longstanding negative attitudes toward the U.S. and
stimulates Russian nationalism.

The major narrative in the West, especially in the U.S., by
the summer of 2014 was that Putin won the battle over Ukraine. American pundits
were falling over themselves in lavishing praise on Putin. Putin was a
strategic genius who boxed in the West, which was flummoxed to come up with a
strong response to Russia’s moves. EU countries didn’t want to impose harsh
sanctions on Russia, because they desperately need Russia for energy supplies.
President Obama, knowing well that Ukraine isn’t an American national priority and having his hands full with turmoil and violence in the Middle East,
wasn’t inclined to demonstrate much leadership on the matters there. The
punchline was that the world simply had to accept the fact of a resurgent,
aggressive Russia, led by a master-level strategic thinker and player.

Ah, but times have changed. At this point, the big question
now is whether Putin has overplayed his hand. It’s very likely he has. The
markets have responded to Russian aggression and they’re not happy. Money has
been flying out of the country and the Russian Ruble is virtually worthless. Oil
prices, which Putin relies on so much for his continued rule and muscle flexing,
have fallen through the floor. But not only that, Putin, or his successors,
must eventually come to grips with the idea that Ukraine will probably become a
full-fledged member of the West. Putin has alienated many ethnic Ukrainians,
who now no longer want to be under his thumb. And a significant number of
ethnic Russian Ukrainians living in Crimea are now Russians, as a result of the
land grab, which could prove to tip the balance once and for all in the ongoing
debate over Ukraine’s future: lean West or East?

Saturday, December 20, 2014

In his 2010 book Cyber War, former US counter-terrorism
czar Richard Clarke described some very scary potential results from a foreign
cyber attack on US infrastructure. Cyber attacks have happened both on their
own (such as alleged Chinese attacks on the Pentagon) as well as to complement
a larger conventional war (such as Russian cyber attacks against Georgia during
the war in August, 2008).The recent
cyber attack against Sony has been likened to stifling free speech. President
Obama criticized Sony’s decision to cancel the movie, stating"We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace
can start imposing censorship in the United States."

North Korea threatened to launch
attacks against the US if The Interview were
released, because of the supposed dishonor to the North Korean leader it would
be. As a resident of South Korea, I was of course initially slightly worried-
even though I had a pretty good idea that would not happen, I’m still enough of
a greenhorn in this country to at least think for a second about it. Of course,
North Korea was rather upset at the release of Team America in 2004 (a movie which I found to be quite hilarious
as an immature, pubescent high schooler). It seems, however, they’ve managed to
do that without firing a shot or a missile.

The US Department of Defense issued
a report stating that while North Korea likely had some sort of cyber
warfare capabilities, the impoverished nation was unlikely to have enough
capabilities for a powerful, large-scale attack. Conversely, it would stand to
reason that as company like Sony would have the latest and most
state-of-the-art cyber security capabilities. People’s general conception of
cyber war has centered on the notion of national militaries using cyber
capabilities to attack each other. Other incidents such as the Target
Corporation data breach were seen more as criminal acts rather than acts of
war. Newt Gingrich has been quick to assert that the US “just lost its first
cyber war” in a famous tweet. I’m not sure this was “our first cyber war”, but
it is a very telling incident.

I have no way of knowing if it
really and truly was North Korea that carried out the attack, and not some techie
sitting in a remote cabin in the mountains of Washington state (yes, I know
someone like that). But I have to assume that US authorities are correct in
assigning blame to North Korea. In which case, there are several valuable
lessons to be learned from this whole fiasco. It’s interesting that something
which was carried out by a state actor (North Korea) against a private
corporation (Sony) is now being primarily handled by the US Justice Department
(the FBI in particular). In fact, this type of attack in which law enforcement
is the primary responder is usually a case of corporate espionage.

Thus, there are several fundamental
points we can gather from this attack on Sony Pictures. The first is that we
cannot afford to be complacent about the capabilities of a small, cash-strapped
country to attack a much more powerful one. This is especially true because a
cyber attack is a much more cost-effective solution to attacking a country than
investing in conventional weapons. Also, it goes to show that in this day and
age, there are no longer clear distinctions between the public and the private
in national security. While much worse things could happen than the cyber
attack against Sony, it’s clear that anything, and any one, can become a
target, and that countries will have to be prepared to meet a variety of
threats from a large number of sources to ensure their own security.

Dear Sony Hackers: now that u run Hollywood, I'd also like less romantic comedies, fewer Michael Bay movies and no more Transformers.
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) December 17, 2014

First of all, let me say this: no, I was not planning to watch "The Interview." Not that I am averse to the premise of assassinating a sitting, living foreign leader, mind you. I just don't like James Franco and Seth Rogen's juvenile style of humor.

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Yesterday, in a reversal of five plus decades of U.S. foreign policy, President Barack Obama announced that his administration will move toward restoring relations with Cuba. His plan includes opening an embassy in Havana, a State Department review of Cuba's designation as a terrorist state, a relaxation on existing travel restrictions to Cuba, and a raise on remittances to Cuban nationals, among other things. Other moves, such as lifting the banking and travel embargo, will require the consent of the legislature, an unlikely prospect, at least right now, in a Republican-dominated Congress.

Obama characterized his new Cuba policy as an attempt to discard an outdated past, a relic from the cold war era that no longer exists. He stated:

We will end an outdated approach that, for decades, has failed to advance our
interests, and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two
countries. Through these changes, we intend to create more opportunities for
the American and Cuban people, and begin a new chapter among the nations of the
Americas....Neither the American, nor Cuban people are well served by a rigid policy that is
rooted in events that took place before most of us were born. Consider that for
more than 35 years, we’ve had relations with China –- a far larger country also
governed by a Communist Party. Nearly two decades ago, we reestablished
relations with Vietnam, where we fought a war that claimed more Americans than
any Cold War confrontation.

Of course, the immediate beneficiaries from Obama's policy shift was Alan Gross, the American contractor who was held in Cuba for the past five years, an unnamed U.S. intelligence agent, held for almost two decades in Cuba, and three Cuban agents, who, likewise, were in U.S. prisons for years. Almost simultaneous with Obama's announcement was the release of Gross, the American spy and the three Cubans.

Not everyone is happy about this new opening to Cuba, though. For instance, according to Senator Marco Rubio, a son of Cuban immigrants, "This entire policy shift announced today is based on an illusion, on a lie, the lie and the illusion that more commerce and access to money and goods will translate to political freedom for the Cuban people....All this is going to do is give the Castro regime, which controls every aspect of Cuban life, the opportunity to manipulate these changes to perpetuate itself in power.”

Perhaps, and human rights and good governance aren't things we should ignore. That said, Rubio's statement isn't a strong enough reason to continue to keep Cuba in exile. Opening up to Cuba is the right course, in my estimation. But my argument isn't based on the so-called power of engagement, a go-to point made by liberal policymakers and analysts and academics.

No, instead, my argument derives directly from realist international relations logic. A growing and increasingly muscular China is expanding its interests around the world, even in America's backyard, as it looks to compete with the U.S. for global power, influence and leadership. Cuba is a perfect political match for China's interests going forward. A closed, isolated and communist Cuba, one that is poor and desperate, is ripe for China to insert itself in a significant way. And currently, China is in a good position to keep Cuba's economy afloat, something that's needed in Havana, especially now that Venezuela, its main backer, is suffering from its own economic troubles. But more importantly, China can use Cuba as a client state to frustrate and undermine, even threaten, America's position in the Western Hemisphere. In short, China can use Cuba much the same way the Soviets did during the cold war. In this case, just like Washington seeks to pin down China in the broader Asia, making it difficult for China to spread its wings, Beijing will very likely seek to do the same to the U.S. in Washington's neighborhood, as that will make it hard for America to spend the time, effort and resources to contain China. This is where Cuba-China relations were headed as long as America continued to freeze Cuba from the extant regional and international orders.

Developing better relations with Cuba makes good strategic sense. As of now, the U.S. is vulnerable to Chinese penetration in America's backyard. Why allow these security vulnerabilities to continue to exist and perhaps fester over time? Opening up to Cuba doesn't mean that Washington will be able to completely ameliorate these things. But it does mean that the U.S. doesn't intend to cede Cuba to China. China will have to compete for Cuba, something, I'm sure, it didn't anticipate. And in a best case scenario, if the U.S. establishes good ties with Cuba, it might well be able to remove a point of access in its neighborhood.

Monday, December 15, 2014

The Sydney hostage crisis ended up in three dead, including
Haron Monis, the hostage taker. While ISIS was quick to claim credit over this
incident, as one might say, be careful what you wished for. From what we
learned so far, Haron Monis is far from the ideal jihadist, a warrior of Islam.
To put it bluntly, he is a nutjob: "He had a long history of violent
crime, infatuation with extremism and mental instability.” Granted, being a
nutjob is not a disqualifying factor to be a so-called holy warrior. In fact,
based on what we learned so far, one who usually answers to the calls of the ISIS,
they are generally young, restless, saddled with identity crisis -- and they
are always useful as cannon fodders. The rest usually grow quickly
disillusioned and run back home.

Brad Nelson

When I heard about the so-called “Sydney Siege,” two things
immediately came to mind. First, I hope my students are paying attention to
this story, especially those students who recently wrote a paper for me on Australian
foreign policy (particularly as it pertains to ISIS).

Second, I expected the events at the Sydney Chocolate shop to
be characterized as an act of terrorism, since the perpetrator
was an alleged radical Muslim—apparently, he even requested an ISIS flag from
Australian authorities. So far, much of the media discussion so far has talked
about the events and the perpetrator through that lens. The problem, in my view, is that Man Haron Monis,
the hostage-taker, wasn’t really a terrorist. Sure, he certainly “terrorized” the people who
he held captive as well as Australians who followed the events in the media, and he was
clearly was willing to use violence against innocent civilians. However, Man
Haron Monis wasn’t politically motivated individual, a hallmark of terrorism. Rather, he was simply a madman.

He has been accused of hiring a mercenary to kill his
ex-wife. There are also a few dozen sexual
assault accusations against him. This was a likely felon, an unbalanced,
unstable, mentally ill person. It just so happened that, as a Muslim, Mr. Monis
gravitated to radical Islam. Radical Islam channeled and gave meaning to his psychotic
behavior. But he just as easily could have turned to a different extremist group
or organization for self-identity, and those entities would have dictated who
he should’ve targeted, harmed, and killed. He’s less Osama bin Laden and more
Charles Manson.